If someone ran for president of the United States while attacking the pillars of its democracy – the peaceful transfer of power and the rule of law – it could be confusing, as well as insulting and outrageous. But is it an effective political strategy? Could Donald Trump’s anti-democratic tactics be a conscious attempt to destabilize things enough to return to power?
Whether intentional or not, his actions verifiably fit a historical pattern that had occurred before, although this may be difficult to see in light of how it happened. Rule-breaking and apparently unprecedented actions of the former president.
Trump refused to accept 86 judicial decisions rejecting his claim of the illegitimacy of the 2020 elections. He insults the allies of the United States and confirms his confidence in the leader of Russia, whom he said he trusts more than the American intelligence services. He withdrew the United States from the treaty prohibiting Russia from targeting our allies in Western Europe. He withheld military aid to Ukraine’s fight against the Russian invasion. He has impugned the integrity of the US Armed Forces by calling for the execution of General Mark Milley, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As the number of deaths due to the epidemic rose in the United States, Trump attacked the National Institutes of Health and proposed strange, dangerous, and discredited treatments. His challenges to the peaceful transition of power and the integrity of our judicial system place confidence in the dollar, which is essential to our financial stability, completely. at stake.
There is a pattern to these seemingly inexplicable, self-destructive, and incompetent moves, brilliantly explained in a new book, “Sowing Hate and Chaos: How Propaganda is Used to Destroy Democracies.” It details the psychological propaganda methods that have previously been used to undermine democracy, freedom, equality and human rights. They create division, institutional distrust, and chaos. It promotes political and cultural changes that tolerate and normalize violence. Societal divisions that should be resolved through peaceful debate, compromise, and law are inflamed to the point where democracy collapses and tyranny sets in.
This has been the pattern in authoritarian takeovers in Germany, Indonesia, Myanmar and Rwanda. Now, whether by deliberate intent or through some dark zeitgeist, the same patterns are discernible in the United States.
The specific techniques of psychological propaganda should sound eerily familiar to anyone after the 2024 election. Indoctrination and recruitment tactics create a sense of unity among followers through the leader’s expression of sympathy for their plight, giving voice to their supporters. Frustrations and grievances. They repeat obvious lies — that the election was stolen, or that outsiders are “poisoning the blood” of the nation — to stir up moral outrage. They ridicule and ridicule opponents, and meet any political arguments they may make with personal attacks. Discuss himself is a degenerate. Whoever disagrees with his opinion is unworthy of respect and deceitful, even treasonous. The scapegoat is identified and labeled as “other.”
Guardrail institutions such as a free press and the justice system are attacked and dismissed as corrupt. Slogans, marches and symbols, whether armbands or ball caps, are used to promote unity – the more sentimental and primitive the better. The meaning of the words themselves is distorted and subsumed by the primal emotions they can arouse. Language is powerfully dehumanizing. The discourse shifts from fighting outsiders to fighting the “enemy within.” Opponents are spoken of in racist terms, as othering vermin, polluting the gene pool, threaten to “replace us.” Patriotism is invoked, and political violence becomes acceptable, even noble, in order to purge the threat.
This was the case in Nazi Germany, when Jews were killed because they were destructive to the German nation and culture; In Indonesia where more than 500,000 citizens were purged to “save the nation”; And in Myanmar, where Buddhist mobs burned Rohingya villages and executed organized mass killings in the name of protecting their homeland and religion.
In each case, the killings were preceded by the emergence of well-organised, armed and trained militias to carry them out. When a triggering event occurred that could be blamed on “others,” whether by accident or design, violence was unleashed, sowing chaos, overthrowing democratic government, and giving rise to tyranny. The tools of state were filled with loyalists. Those who did not surrender were labeled traitors and vulnerable to violence.
Trump is increasingly reenacting aspects of these historical patterns. He commands his followers not to believe what they see, hear, or read in the mainstream media, but to believe Him alone. Recently he went so far as to describe Democratic Party leaders as “domestic enemies.” “We should use military force at home and go after his political opponents,” he said.
Milley had the audacity to argue against the use of military force against American citizens, and to say, “We do not swear an oath to a king, a queen, a tyrant, or a dictator. …We take an oath to the Constitution…and we are willing to die to protect it.” If Trump could call for the execution of a prominent figure like Milley, think what he might do – or what he might incite his supporters to do – to ordinary Americans.
Whether he does so intentionally or is condemned to repeat history out of ignorance, Trump is discrediting and insulting democracy and pushing us down the same path toward tyranny that other countries have followed. The best treatment is to recognize and uncover the historical pattern, and reject the direction it leads to.
As José Ramos-Horta, the Nobel laureate and president of East Timor, wrote: “As many in other parts of the world can attest, we can defend freedom and democracy now, or we can die for them later.”
Jonathan Granoff is President of the Global Security Institute, and Senior Advisor and Permanent Secretariat Representative for the World Summits of Nobel Peace Laureates to the United Nations. These are his own opinions.
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